More Than 20,000 NC Voters Have Fake Registration Addresses

April 16, 2014

Raleigh, NC)— APR 16, 2014—The Voter Integrity Project of North Carolina, today, submitted data to the NC State Board of Elections that show 20,532 NC voters were registered at street addresses that do not exist and 13,027 (or 63.4%) of them listed a post office box as their alternative mailing address.

“We are amazed that counties allow people to vote with a non-existent registration address,” said Jay DeLancy, “and wonder how election officials can correctly assign these voters to a precinct when they give a PO Box as their secondary address.”

Last week, the group posted email from Buncombe County Emergency services and from a US Postal Service representative, confirming that zero addresses do not exist.

“Any mailing with a zero as a street number will be returned to sender as an insufficient address,” according to an email message VIP-NC received from a Post Office employee in Buncombe County and confirmed separately by a postal official at the USPS central call center (who refused to give her name).

“The single factor in issuing correct ballots to voters is where they lay their head at night,” said DeLancy, “but when a voter lists a non-existent residential address, we get worried; and when they list a PO Box as their secondary address, we get angry that county election officials are tolerating such sloppy list maintenance.”

VIP-NC released a list of the top 15 counties with the most registrations from zero-address voters. The data, from December 2013, was confirmed in April 2014, but April’s data excluded 12 counties due to problems with the NC BoE website. The partial April figures confirmed overall trends with 65% listing a PO Box as a secondary address and a minor amount of voters removed who died or moved away. They’re still researching the number who voted, but 14,998 (73%) of the December voters had their status listed as “active.”

“We want these fictional registration addresses to be investigated and explained to the public,” DeLancy said. “Holes in the system like this make us wonder if certain election offices can even do their jobs.”